There has been a good deal of debate in Ealing about the “cutsâ€. One thing we have not heard about is the Labour administration’s ideas about shared services. Today we have heard some early results of the Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham project – an ambitious programme that aims to save £33 million across the three councils by 2015/6. In particular the project aims to halve the number of middle and senior managers. As I pointed out last Friday Ealing’s bill for its senior management team is £8.9 million. Half of that would be well worth having.
The detail of the first £1 million of savings makes interesting reading:
- £320k by sharing a single director of children’s services
- £320k by sharing a single director of adult services
- £100k by sharing a single director of libraries
- £150k by combining environmental services across Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea
- £120k by combining making a joint appointment to the director for schools’ quality and standards between Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea.
All these savings involve taking out senior management roles; something that Ealing has signally failed to address.
A more detailed document is available here.